Archive for May, 2011

Picking up the thread from recent posts, I now have my Windows 7 tablet pc.After much deliberation I bought an Acer Iconia W500, but without the optional keyboard. What an amazing little machine it is too! Having read all the reviews I could find, most of which say that Windows 7 just doesn’t work on a tablet, I wonder what they were reviewing! It’s not an iPad, but it works really well as a business machine.All the complaints about small icons and text can be addressed by setting up Windows to suit your own preferences. OK, an iPad doesn’t need setting up, but I rather like making up my own mind about how my system looks and feels.All the Touch stuff works well and the handwriting recognition is little short of amazing. Quick and accurate straight out of the box. I’m going to get a touch stylus so I can use the tablet for making notes. It’s that good.My tablet now runs Office, so I can work on client projects wherever I am, and I can tether it to my ‘phone for internet access if I need it. It’s already proving useful around our home-based business too. It’s just so handy being able to access stuff without having to go into the office or get out a full-sized laptop! Battery life has been excellent too. Using it at meetings and to do odd bits of work in between, the battery lasts all day. I reckon it would run for at least 4 hours solid, which is way below the 10 hours of an iPad, but plenty for me to use it all day and charge it in the evening.I just don’t need to be able to watch videos or listen to music all day. If I did, I would buy an iPad or an Android tablet.The screen, which is really, really good, has a resolution of 1280 x 800, so HD content looks excellent. I connected it to a 32 inch HD TV and it’s just as good. So my presentations will look stunning! (on a decent projector…….)I can already see how I can change the way I work now I’ve had a chance to use a tablet in anger. It’s much easier to carry about than a normal laptop, runs for hours and means I can work pretty much anywhere.It’s so handy being able to load stuff onto it to show customers – much better than using a laptop because it’s just so convenient. It fits nicely into my A4 document case. along with a paper notepad and some business cards – it’s all I need for meetings. The tablet and my smartphone give me an amazing amount of flexibility to work anywhere, how ever did I manage before!So there you have it, a Windows 7 tablet really does work, for me at least.I haven’t attempted the usual tablet vs iPad stuff as I believe they have different audiences.I’ve tried an iPad and it’s an amazing thing to use, but it’s not aimed at me.